1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus and an inspection method.
2. Related Art
Known examples of a printing apparatus include already practically used printers each causing fluids such as inks to be ejected through respective nozzles by driving piezoelectric elements or the like corresponding thereto. For such a printer, various methods each for inspecting a fluid ejection failure have been proposed.
In JP-A-2011-11439, it is described that mutually different driving signals are used for a white ink and a color ink, respectively. In JP-A-2007-30344, it is described that a waveform for discharging and a waveform for detection are provided during one cycle of a driving signal, and the detection is performed during a scanning of a carriage. In JP-A-2005-22219, it is described that, in the case where a detection of the lack of dots for a clear ink is performed by using a clear pattern superimposed on a color pattern, a resolution of the clear pattern is lower than a resolution of the color pattern.
It is possible to detect an ejection failure of a color ink or the like by inspecting an image having been formed as the result of ejections thereof onto a medium. Meanwhile, with respect to an ink which is hard to be optically detected, it is difficult to detect an ejection failure of such an ink by inspecting an image having been formed as the result of ejections thereof onto a medium. Further, under the situation where a medium is continuously fed, it is desirable to perform these two kinds of ejection failure inspections during printing.